


Unwelcome Honour

by id_ten_it



Series: Inktober [9]
Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Australia, Bicycles, Divorce, F/M, Inktober, Inktober 2020, Past Infidelity, Post-World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:34:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27790819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/id_ten_it/pseuds/id_ten_it
Summary: Jack is back from the war, and struggling to reintegrate; Rosie is torn between wanting him back and wanting her accustomed freedom.In the end, it ends as it must - he waits at home while she travels the world.
Relationships: Jack Robinson/Rosie Sanderson
Series: Inktober [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2003845
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Unwelcome Honour

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Inktober prompt nr 23 (unwelcome) from the alternative Inktober pompt list found [here](https://vkelleyart.tumblr.com/post/630712063324504064/we-are-doing-this-thing-yall-so-it-was), with thanks for the originator for doing the hard yards and providing a better alternative to the original.
> 
> As always in this fandom thanks for Scratch_Pad's [Money Meta](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17486885?view_full_work=true) for the research jump-start and excellent links. 
> 
> See end notes for trigger warnings.

He’d never made her feel unwelcome before. _Before_. Before the war, the separation, the change, they’d always managed to come together, to share in their different interests. Bicycles were just things Rosie used as transport, but she washed his training gear and waved him off on rides with a light heart. To Jack, alone, the new music hall tunes were nothing exciting, but he learnt to sing them because she loved them and he couldn’t afford a gramophone yet.

  
_After_. After the violence, the alertness, the distance, after that came the separation. He would go to the music halls with her, perched on the end of a row (crowds still made his shoulder-blades itch) and he’d faultlessly sing the songs for her the next night, but he performed as a sort of automaton. He didn’t truly meet her gaze, didn’t give out enough energy to produce the magic of two becoming one together in the music.  
Despite working harder than ever – despite fighting passionately on the picket line – he would ride the bike he brought back with him for hours. She still washed his clothes and she knew by the marks on them that that was all he was doing. It was enough to shut her out with just that. Lucy-from-next-door’s Bruce had taken to ‘going for rides’ and came back reeking of other men, or the brothel; she’d have found infidelity easier somehow, had a reason to be upset and not just been jealous of a bike.

  
Jack heard her and Lucy talking once and haltingly attempted to explain that night what his previous letters and then his body had already demonstrated. She still knew him enough to know he clung to the oath he had taken and wouldn’t dream of using another woman, even if half the world lay between them. He’d apparently not been as tempted as she had, or he was still truly sure that only she could make him forget himself and lose himself in pleasure.  
She hadn’t told him, just then, what she’d done and with whom, but he was good at his job and knew her so that when he asked a year later if, maybe, perhaps, everything...down there...wasn’t working and she – angry – yelled it did but not with him, it had been resignation and not surprise on his face, self-doubt and not disappointment in his eyes.

He knew he’d changed, but she didn’t see him change back fast enough, didn’t even see him try. It felt like he’d learnt to flourish alone, and she hadn’t ever needed him either, so she stopped choosing him and he stopped trying to remember how to choose her and instead settled into the _after_ life, rare echoes of _before_ jerking in at odd moments – a song hummed as he worked in the garden, a bashful smile as he returned uniform-black threat to her sewing box. But mostly, defiantly, he lived in the after. He was like a strongly-drawn portrait of a man glimpsed in the back of a bus, he continued to startle her from the comfort of home. When he was away nobody got into the cupboards and moved things around, the middle shelf in the parlour never looked overcrowded with books she wasn’t sure she would ever read, and nobody ever asked where she was going or when she would be back. When he was away she was free and imposed her own rhythm on the house, and now he was back he seemed incapable of walking in synch with her but would tweak a little glass of brandy into the menu there, a sudden desire for sleeping with the windows shut there, till she never felt welcome.

When they eventually talked about it, it was as business partners. He got the house, she got everything else either in her trunk now or shipped to her sister for later. He would have given her more – he had never ceased to be honourable – but she was determined they would get a divorce and that meant she was deserting him with a purpose. Anyway, there were more and easier-to-live-with men in the world than Jack Robinson, so Rosie wasn’t too concerned. Three years and she could get on with re-settling in Melbourne. The only thing she really regretted leaving was his series of letters from the few leaves he had taken in England; his enthusiasm for the new sights and sounds had jumped off the page and ironically assisted now in spurring her travel on.

He didn’t wave her off at the dock, but that was because she wouldn’t let him. When she had stepped to the door that morning he had followed her with his eyes like a doleful bloodhound watching its master leave. He obviously knew this was the right thing, that he couldn’t change her mind, but he just as obviously wasn’t pleased to see it happen.  
“I shan’t write” she’d reminded him briskly, “but I’ll be back before three years are up, and I’ll make sure my lawyer contacts you. If I need anything, Dahlia knows where to find you.” His grief was so strong that she’d cupped his cheek then, not wanting their last kiss to be the one they had attempted all those weeks ago. “It’s for the best, Jack. Thank you for everything.” When she stepped back his eyes were just fluttering open, and if they were a little damper than usual well, it was a dry autumn day. “Take care of yourself.” She adjured, opening the door.  
“You too, Rosie.” He managed, holding the door open and passing her her handbag as though this were just another jaunt she was off on.

Her last view of him was just that, straight and noble in his work clothes at their old home, squinting a little into the sun as he stood alone on the step he had once carried her over as a new bride. She watched for a moment then turned away, unwilling to see the once-familiar shape change again into something private and different, shutting her out and holding itself aloof. In the distance lay the docks, and her new-bought trunk filled with its new-bought clothes and favourite books, and far beyond that lay England and family and adventure.  
  
Behind her, in the distance, Jack returned to his morning routine, preparing for another day at the office. Three years was a long time, but he had done it before and he would do it again; nobody was shooting at him this time, and besides, he had made a promise. Not that he anticipated any temptation in that department, it wasn’t like women were lining up for him.

**Author's Note:**

> A small take on the difficulties of reverse culture shock, but nothing we haven't covered in canon already. Triggers for infidelity, adultery, and abortion.
> 
> The small changes (brandy, windows shut) Jack seeks are because he has got used to the taste of one, and sick of the feel of sleeping half out-of-doors; research on WW1 re-integration suggests he is not at all alone.


End file.
